


What The Thunder Said

by JoAsakura



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Feels, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 11:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5161934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For N7 Day 2015.  A sort of companion to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/428247?view_full_work=true">Photograph</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	What The Thunder Said

_By this, and this only, we have existed._

~~

10 January 2171,

He doesn't remember much about the summer and subsequent autumn of 2168, not because of the coma, but because of the beating that preceded it. But he'd been young, resilient, and still carrying the ghost of his first barrier when it had happened. That first biotic charge, untrained and uncontrolled, had saved Oleg Petrokovich's life and subsequently his own. The old man's face had never been right again since the Reds had beaten him with a pipe, but he'd taken in the drugged-out little punk who'd saved his life, given Vanya a room above his shop. Given him a chance to start over. And Vanya had sworn not to lie to him.

The datapad in his shaking hands reflects the very first breach of that trust, his bitten nails clutching hard against the plastic frame. The western name on there is one he's never used, stuck to him by aid workers who fished him out with a hundred other broken children when Narodnaya City fell into it's faulty, eezo-tainted mines, but it's a name for a new beginning. It's a name that doesn't carry the weight of the old man's shattered face on it.

"Oleg Petrokovich." He says, and the old man looks up, the broken half of his face slack, but his eyes sharp and dark. "I have to talk to you." Vanya tugs at the itchy shirt, наливной logo with it's holgraphic grapes poking at the skin over his heart. He's a solid brick of a young man, which makes his quavering voice so ironic. "I want to join the Alliance Marines."

"You're young and stupid, Vano. You want to die in space? I fought in the First Contact War when you were still in diapers and.." The old man starts, setting down the sports section of his news. "Why do you want to throw your life away from Earth?"

The biotics spark and sizzle a fitful blue on Vanya's skin and he sets the datapad down on the liqour store's worn wooden counter. "I want my life to make a difference." Vanya... Shepard now... says firmly. "I want it to mean something."

 

~~

07 August 2173

When Shepard first arrived at Arcturus for training, the officer who greeted him and the other biotic recruits had been painfully clear. "You'll have to do all the same training as the normal, human recruits, plus the special biotic proficiency skills. Good luck, maggots."  
  
The Alliance wanted to pretend Jump Zero had never happened. Wanted biotics on display, the still-new kids on the galactic block bearing their teeth at the Asari and the Turians, but that sentiment hadn't trickled down to the field officers, to the boots on the ground, and the recruits were reminded that with the stares on their backs and the whisperings in mess.  
  
Worse, the Incentive Scheme made officers of the biotics out of training, officers no one would follow and who couldn't use their powers without three layers of command approval.  
  
Shepard's roommate was a few years older, an old-earth cigarette made human - long, lean and probably bad for the health of everyone around him. "They're gonna class us out next week, Shep." He said as they rounded the track, Shepard's legs struggling to meet the other's pace. "I guarantee they're gonna stick us right in the V."  
  
"What makes you say that, Archie?"  Shepard pulled ahead of him, just a hair, and the question was only asked to check his breathing pace. They both knew why.  
  
"No one's gonna care if someone like you or me dies because the Alliance doesn't actually know how to train a biotic soldier.  Adepts they keep at the back if possible. Sentinels are still classed for support. You an' me? We're gonna be charging in holding our dicks." Archie muttered, settling into a loping pace.  
  
"Admit it." Shepard snorts, sussing out the biotic targets they're approaching. "You'd be bitching if they kept you at the back. You like a fight too much."  
  
"Keep being on the nose so much an' I won't cook for you anymore." Archie laughs as he hops the barrier.  "What about you?"  
  
"I just want to make a difference." Shepard grins as they hit the obstacle course.  
  
~~  
  
09 August 2173  
  
He's jogging through  one of Arcturus' artificial parks when he sees the newest batch of biotic recruits being given a lecture-tour.  
  
He feels a tingle up his spine, the brief harmonics of complimentary biotics and he looks away from the path to find the source. For one moment his eyes meet a pair, whiskey-gold and full of old hurt like a cheap, bitter burn.  
  
He almost runs into a tree and it's not until he recounts it, years later, that he realises who those eyes belong to.  
  
~~  
  
14 April 2176  
  
As the SSV Lamarr breaks apart in low orbit over Elysium like a fireworks display, Shepard makes a note to apologise to Archie the next time they can catch up on leave, because right now, he's all that stands between the colony town of Paradise Falls and a cohort of batarian slavers.  
  
Other than his powers, he's got a hunter's shotgun, three extra thermal clips, and quite frankly, it feels exactly like he's charging in and holding his dick.  
  
"Make it count, Vanya." He says to himself as he charges the gun and feels the amp in the back of his neck hum as it powers up. "Make it fucking count."  
  
~~  
  
18 January 2183  
  
He knows Anderson asked for him personally. Knows that the Normandy is breaking normal protocol by having two biotic officers aboard.  
  
Shepard clutches the datapad with the crew dossiers a little tighter to his chest. He can't wait to meet Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko.  He hasn't served or trained with another biotic since ICT and they weren't encouraged to be friends there.  
  
He wants this to be different. He needs this to be different.  
  
He almost walks into the bulkhead and Anderson has the good graces not to laugh at him.  
  
~~  
  
3 February 2183  
  
He's dreaming in blood red alien screams and unknowably monstrous gods from the dark of space. Shepard hears Oleg Petrokovich's voice in the back of his head saying "Vano, I told you so," but Kaidan is smiling at him and Shepard thinks that might not be the worst tradeoff he's ever faced.  
  
~~~  
  
22 June 2183  
  
Virmire is a beautiful planet. Shepard will always remember how pristine and blue the sky was that day. It seems ridiculous that he keeps thinking about it as he runs. His face is bleeding- nose broken and his jaw's dislocated from Saren hammering his skull into the wall - and his lungs are burning. The Normandy is so far away, and Kaidan is draped over his shoulders, barely moving. He can smell blood, and the Lieutenant's biotics feel dim against his own, a sputtering candle guttering in the wind.  
  
Ash is shouting for him to run faster in his earpiece and his heart feels like it's going to break. She's holding the line as Kaidan's bomb counts down, the VI's tinny voice like an accusation. "Twenty Five... Twenty Four..."  
  
"Kaidan..." Shepard rasps, tightening his grip. "I'm gonna charge us aboard the Normandy. Just.. just keep your eyes closed."  
  
There's no reply as the world drops out around him, frozen and blue, but he can feel the strain of charging with a passenger build up like a bad pressure suit behind his eyes and the world catches up to him as he snaps back into normal reality, body curled around Kaidan's as they tumble into the hangar bay. "JOKER GO GO GO GO!" He chants, hoarsely shouting as they roll across the floor.  
  
The edge of the bomb's shockwave catches the Normandy as she pulls up through the atmosphere and Shepard dry heaves against the bulkhead to hide the tears. Kaidan's armoured hand is suddenly gentle on his scalp and pulls him closer.  
  
"It's OK, commander." Kaidan's rough whisper is for him alone.  
  
~~  
  
12 November 2185  
  
"This is not OK, Shepard." Kaidan says with bitter whiskey eyes as the tall grass whispers against Shepard's legs. Kaidan's armoured hand is gentle against his arm as it falls away. The air smells like ozone and biotics and farmyard funk and he can hear Garrus' mandible twitching with a nervous bony tic the longer the argument goes on. Shepard is grateful the sky is iron-grey and roiling with clouds to match the feeling in his guts.  
  
He couldn't stand it if the sky were blue.  
  
He holds onto the memory of that afternoon when he's ass-deep in collectors and the buzzing in the dark has seeped through his hardsuit and into his pores. He holds on to it as he runs through the fire, desperately trying to reach the Normandy as Joker struggles to hold her in place. Holds onto it as Amanda Kenson tortures him and as his desperation consigns the Bahak system to destruction to hold the reapers back just a little longer.  
  
He lets it go when he lets Hackett clamp the irons on his wrists and they pull the Cerberus-issue amp from his jack with a gut-twisting shudder. The reapers are still coming and the batarians are screaming for his blood and he wonders, numb as they lead him to a makeshift cell in the hold, if this is what his younger self had expected, setting down that datapad with trembling hands and trembling voice.  
  
"You fucked up, Vanya." He says to himself, and he's not sure who he's wishing would say it to him.  
  
~~~  
  
10 November 2186  
  
It's almost one year since Horizon, and Kaidan's bare fingers are gentle on his scalp, kinder than the harsh kisses on Shepard's mouth as they fall back against his bed. Their powers sing, twined with each other and he says I love you, over and over, in every way he possibly knows how.  
  
"It's ok, Shepard." Kaidan says, kissing away his fears. "I love you too."  
  
~~  
  
4 December 2186  
  
Medigel pumps fitfully out of his hardsuit's trauma systems, mixing with his blood and dribbling out onto the floor of the Citadel's control chamber.  
  
Anderson's breath rattled to a stop moments ago and Shepard follows his line of sight, watching through blurry vision the rain of burning debris lancing through the earth's atmosphere. He's heard the old chestnut about one's life flashing before his eyes -   
  
Oleg's been dead for a decade, Archie and his team are bleeding out on the war-torn streets of London. Kaidan's safe (he prays and prays that Kaidan's safe. That the Normandy's bugging out and Kaidan's safe even as his own life bleeds out and that is far from the worst tradeoff he's made over the years), - and he wonders at the high points his subconscious has chosen to share.  
  
There's a ring on his finger, dull grey and microfabbed from part of the Normandy's bulkhead. A promise that he can't fulfill, listening to his own breath crackle wetly in the oppressive silence.  
  
When Hackett's voice suddenly jolts Shepard out of his musings, he almost laughs.  
  
One last chance then to make it count, one last difference to make.  
  
"This is Shepard." He coughs out, tasting nothing but blood as it runs down his cheek. "What do you need sir?"

 

~~~

_Peace, peace, peace._

 

 


End file.
